Bahrainian extradited from Serbia despite ECHR opposition
Pearl Square, a roundabout near downtown Manama, February 20, 2011. The square has been the scene of numerous protests against the government.
REUTERS - Caren Firouz
Text by: RFI Follow
1 min
A Bahrain national was extradited this week from Serbia, where he had found refuge, to his country of origin.
But this extradition caused a lot of reaction.
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His name is Ahmed Jaffar Mohammed Ali, is 49 years old, and was sentenced in his country to three life prison terms.
The Bahraini authorities accuse him of acts of terrorism, murder and possession of explosives.
But it is a completely different picture that Human Rights Watch (HRW) draws of him.
The human rights organization presents him as a political dissident, arrested and tortured after participating in the 2007 protests in Bahrain against the government.
A “scandalous extradition”
In 2011, the “
Arab Spring
” in this country was violently repressed.
Ahmed Jaffar Mohammed Ali fled his country two years later.
Last November, he was arrested in Serbia.
The European Court of Human Rights is asking that he not be extradited to Bahrain because, according to it, he risks being tortured.
But she is not heard.
Serbia carried out this extradition on the basis of an international arrest warrant issued by Interpol.
The police body has come under fire recently after electing as its head
an Emirati official accused of human rights abuses
in his country.
The NGO BIRD, denounced a “
scandalous extradition by the Serbian government which condemns someone to torture and life imprisonment
”.
The European Parliament considered in a resolution voted last year that, since 2011, “
the Bahraini authorities have continued to flout and restrict the rights and freedoms of the population
”.
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